J.J. Warren, BA MDiv PhD

The Reverend J.J. Warren (he/him) is the tenure track Assistant Professor of (Queer) Theology at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester New York (USA), home to notable alumni such as the German-American theologian Rev. Walter Rauschenbusch (one of the founders of the "Social Gospel" movement), and civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor Warren also leads the Gender, Sexuality, and Racial Justice program at CRCDS, which houses the nation’s first Doctor of Ministry program in Queer and Trans Studies. In addition to the CRCDS faculty, Professor Warren resides in Vienna and is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Systematic Theology here at the University of Vienna where he is working on a habilitation.

Professor Warren is the author of two manuscripts, Reclaiming Church: A Call to Action for Religious Rejects and Where Two or Three are Connected: Being the Church in This New Era. After making an impassioned plea for the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ persons at The United Methodist Church’s (EmK’s) top law-making assembly in 2019, his speech went viral, and his advocacy has been covered by HuffPost, NBC, and French media company Brut Media. He has earned a Master’s of Divinity (M.Div.) from Boston University School of Theology (’22), which is known as "the school of the prophets," and a Bachelor’s of Arts from New York’s Sarah Lawrence College (’19) where he studied religion and creative writing, and will defend his dissertation, "Being Interpreted: A (Queer) Systematic Theology," in September for the Doctor of Theology degree here at the University of Vienna.

In June, 2023, Professor Warren was Commissioned as a Provisional Member (clergy) in the New England Conference of The United Methodist Church, and he currently serves as the Executive Director of Young Prophets Collective, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that seeks to "equip and empower a global community of young LGBTQIA+ religious leaders and allies who use their voices for liberation." This nonprofit has launched the first online new church start to gather in a virtual sanctuary.